Stephen Booth - The kill call

But if you were young in 1968, you could sense the world changing. Every day, you felt things shifting under your feet, as if the whole of existence could tip in one direction or the other at any moment. We might shake off the old ways, or we might all be destroyed. It was hard to tell. We didn’t know what the future looked like, but we knew it would be different.

It’s strange how the mind works. For me, bits of music used to pop into my head all the time, as if every thought and feeling I had was connected to a tune playing somewhere, like a soundtrack of my life. In 1968, you never knew where you stood with pop music. One week it was the Rolling Stones at the top of the charts, the next week it was bloody Des O’Connor.

Just thinking about threes reminded me of the Three Degrees, even though I never really liked them. They would have been one of Jimmy’s favourite groups, if he’d lived a bit longer. He was mad on the Supremes and the Four Tops, all that Tamla stuff. I thought of him often in the months after it happened, the fact that he never heard the Supremes sing ‘Love Child’, and completely missed ‘I Heard it through the Grapevine’. He died too young. We heard that a lot, in those days.

No, me and Jimmy saw eye to eye on a lot of things, but I never got into Motown myself. Give me the Stones any day of the week. ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’ had come out just about then. Now, that was music. With half a chance, I’d like to have turned it up loud in that hole, let it bounce off those bloody concrete walls until my ears ached. It’s a gas, gas, gas.

But not down there, not while the mad people ran the world. And Les would never have let me do it, anyway. Because Les was number one.

For hours on end, it seemed my world revolved around the pee pot and the pump. Bloody strange way to save the world, I always thought. The stink of Elsan and Glitto, the bad air you had to breathe until you got back up into the daylight. Why some blokes put up with it, I couldn’t tell you.

Me, I just reckoned I was doing something for my family, and for my village. But, you know what? I was never too sure what I would have done, if the call had ever come for real.

And I was never sure — not really sure — whether I was capable of killing a man.

Friday

When she arrived at West Street next morning, Fry found Murfin motionless at his desk, staring into space.

‘Watch it, Gavin. If you’re not careful, they’ll replace you with one of those cardboard policemen.’

‘Sorry.’

‘And it might even be an improvement.’

Fry knew she didn’t need to explain what she meant. A few months ago, life-size cardboard police officers had been placed at businesses across the division in a bid to deter shoplifters. Ten cardboard cut-outs of a beat officer. According to the subsequent press releases, the cut-outs had reduced the number of reported thefts from stores, thieves thinking at first glance that the image was a real officer. It had become part of office lore that it was so easy to be confused.

Cooper laughed. ‘I think you’re safe, Gavin. You know the Chief Super said cardboard cut-outs can never replace real officers.’

‘Well, that’s what he told the press.’

Fry recalled that the senior management team were in a meeting again this morning. She imagined them talking about optimizing performance outcomes at the point of delivery. There must be something about becoming a senior manager that destroyed your sense of irony. That was the only reason Gavin Murfin got away with what he did.

She turned to the files on her desk. Still no news of Michael Clay’s whereabouts. He certainly hadn’t returned her calls, but that would have been too much to hope for. It was probably time to step up the efforts to find him. Her elusive witness was starting to look downright suspicious.

So what else was there? Horse Watch had sent a list of the latest horse thefts in their area. The thefts went back a few weeks, but there weren’t too many of them. Lucky, because all the owners would have to be spoken to.

Fry surveyed her team. Come to think of it, Murfin had some of the characteristics of a horse, like falling asleep standing up.

And then there was the envelope full of enhanced photographs from the lab. These should be the shots of the depressed fracture to Patrick Rawson’s head.

Fry took the photographs out of their envelope and glanced at the first one. Patrick Rawson’s skull, shaved and cleaned under bright laboratory lighting. The flash had cast just the right amount of shadow and perspective on the head injury, outlining the depression in the bone as if it had been a crater on the Moon.

Apart from one obliterated and smashed end, the bloodied sides of the depression formed a distinct pattern, an almost perfectly preserved shape. There was no medical knowledge necessary. Fry recognized it immediately.

‘It’s a horseshoe,’ she said. ‘His skull was crushed by a horseshoe.’

Fry called Dermot Walsh at Trading Standards, and was struck by how different he sounded on the phone. She would never have pictured him the way he actually looked.

‘Thank you for the briefing yesterday,’ she said.

‘I was glad to share what we have. I hope it was useful. There are a lot of upset victims out there who never got justice. Not against Patrick Rawson, anyway.’

‘We’re particularly sensitive to crimes involving animals in this country aren’t we?’

‘Well, I don’t know,’ said Joyce. ‘We learn a lot of things from the USA. Horse thefts have been rising dramatically in the States. There are substantial dollars to be made in the legitimate market, and virtually nothing to lose in the black market. A horse can be stolen, slaughtered, packaged, shipped to Europe, and served up on a plate before a ranch owner realizes the animal is missing. That’s fast cash. And any method of earning fast money makes its way here sooner or later.’

‘Are the Americans as fond of their horses as we are?’

‘A few years ago there was a scandal involving a group of individuals running a charity that was supposed to be “adopting” horses rescued from inhumane conditions. It turned out they were then shipping the horses off to Japan to be slaughtered for food. A lot of people were horrified that they’d contributed money to a charity fighting animal abuse, only for the animals to be sent off to be killed. Cue much outcry, little girls walking in protest lines and so on. Fines and prison sentences for the perps. That hasn’t happened here yet, so far as we know.’

‘I wanted to ask you — can any horse be sold for human consumption?’

‘No, it depends whether the owner has made a Section Nine declaration.’

‘In the horse passport?’

‘That’s right. The trouble is, once you’ve signed “not intended for human consumption”, a Section Nine declaration can’t be changed. Of course, what I mean is — it can’t be changed legally.’

‘And if a horse doesn’t have a passport?’

‘It’s stolen. You should treat a horse passport like the log book of a car. Never buy a horse without one and always check it’s in order before you pay.’

‘Frankly, I’m amazed that people can still be duped when all these regulations are in place,’ said Fry.

‘Oh, you’d be surprised how many people don’t bother to check in the excitement of the moment. You want to look at your new horse, not at boring old paperwork. Just like you want to get in your new car and take it for a drive. You’re more interested in what’s under the bonnet than what’s in the log book. It’s the same with a horse.’

‘What’s the penalty for not having a passport?’

‘A maximum five thousand pounds fine,’ said Walsh, ‘or imprisonment for up to three months, or both.’